Sonata 0

Soheil Nasseri (piano)

Cd cover image Sonata 0

Duration:

“Sorabji’s 1917 sonata is among his earliest extant works; it predates his published Sonata No.1 and has thus come to be known as ‘Sonata No.0’ since its rediscovery in the 1980s. Long since discarded by the composer, the manuscript somehow became separated into two parts and ended up in two separate private collections before being reunited as a result of luck and persistence on the part of Sorabji researchers in the UK. Prior to losing it, the composer heavily, and somewhat arbitrarily, cut the work as originally written, presumably in an attempt to tighten up its freely rhapsodic, sprawling structure. This recording is of the final, cut version. Harmonically sumptuous and richly chromatic, the sonata plainly prefigures sonatas nos. 1-3 of a few years later, even employing a number of gestures and phrases that found their way into the later works, as well as the heady, voluptuous atmosphere that he explored in more concentrated form in the Fantaisie espagnole soon after. The influence of middle-period Scriabin is very apparent, and a languid impressionism occupies more of the musical texture than is the norm in later works; by 1923’s Le Jardin parfumé this had already become the denser, more saturated ‘tropical nocturne’ style of the composer’s maturity. Fascinating to encounter these preoccupations germinating and developing at such an early stage in Sorabji’s output.” (Records International)